Service to Australia

The many aspects of Salvation Army service to Australians

  • During the wars
  • Emergency services
  • Family Tracing
  • Flying Padre
  • Migrant services
  • Prison ministry
  • The unemployed

For an up-to-date list of services provided, see our Services web pages.

During the wars

Chaplaincy in the armed forces of several nations has included The Salvation Army's officers as padres. Other Salvation Army personnel served under the Red Shield as welfare representatives. The warm regard in which the Salvos are held by Australians is largely due to the service of dedicated Salvationists at Gallipoli, at Flanders, at Tobruk and at Kokoda.

Salvationist, acclaimed writer and broadcaster John Cleary describes Salvationist chaplains and Red Shield representatives at war in his book Salvo! "The Salvos went to war wearing Red Shield badges and carrying compassion within them". That Red Shield has accompanied Australian troops in every theatre of war since the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Salvation Army provided some official Chaplains to the Armed Forces, based upon the percentage of population to denomination: e.g. the Church of England had the most chaplains, and the Salvos were grouped in with the "OPDs" (Other Protestant Denominations).

A World War II tale from a Pacific prisoner-of-war camp tells of a group of chaplains taking groups of men away for a church parade. The Salvo chaplain left his run to the last and reputedly said, "All right, all you chaps who don't belong to anyone, come with me"!

During the Great War, only chaplains (also referred to as "padres") accompanied troops to the front- lines. Work in camps, etc., was done by national service secretaries. But in the second global conflict, i.e. WWII, the work of providing welfare to front-line troops was done by "attested" representatives. The chaplains still provided spiritual comfort and guidance to the troops, but concentrated less on the material side than their WW1 counterparts.

Chaplains were Salvation Army officers who were commissioned into the armed forces and given a military rank. The Armed Forces provided for and paid them, and the chaplains were administered under military law.

Red Shield representatives were Salvation Army officers and lay Salvationists who were attached to military units as welfare officers. They were not provided for or paid by the military and often had to fend for themselves. They were afforded the courtesies due to a junior officer (i.e. subaltern) but had no authority to issue orders.

For more information see our Archives and Museum website.

Emergency services

Emergency services work and the Army have a strong association in Australia. From the Queensland floods in 1891, Salvos have been at hand when needed. Through a kind word, a cup of coffee - even, at times, direct intervention to protect the dispossessed - the Army has seen service in many different fields of human tragedy.

Salvationists helped out on the goldfields. They have stood firm in the aftermath of flash floods, even tidal waves such as the one that hit Port Pirie, South Australia, in 1934. They sought out terrified immigrants from Yugoslavia that same year, who had escaped from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, after riots and rifle fire.

The Army has served Australians in times of searing drought, in bushfires across the length and breadth of the nation. Salvos have been there to support firefighters, ambulance workers and police officers.

They have been at train derailments, the aftermath of violence such as biker vendettas and the Port Arthur massacre. They have served at natural disasters such as Cyclone Tracy in 1974, the Newcastle earthquake and the landslide at the Thredbo ski resort.

Where there is pain and sadness, the Army joins the response force of emergency personnel, aid and social workers, professional counsellors and spiritual advisors. The Salvo shows up to help.

For more information see our Emergency Services website.

Migrant Services

The Army's work with the disadvantaged covers many aspects. The development of an inclusive, multicultural Australia has meant the Army has needed to begin offering ministries to non-English speaking people. There are currently expressions of Salvation Army work and worship being conducted in the Chinese, Korean and Russian languages. The main difficulty in fulfilling the potential of such ministries is the availability of bilingual staff.

The unemployed

Unemployment in the wake of the serious 1890s and 1930s depressions threatened the very survival of middle and working class Australians. The Salvation Army, along with other churches and civic groups, struggled valiantly to fill the gap that existed in this country before government benefits were available.

In 1889 the first Salvation Army "labor bureau" (indeed, the first such bureau in Australia) was opened in Melbourne. In a time of deep privation and stark hunger, breadwinning males from the country entered the cities in droves to seek work. Their city counterparts scoured the goldfields in hope of the means to support their loved ones and themselves.

The Victorian Government, seeing the need for such a service, took over the running of the labor bureau in 1892. With the government's move into the labour market, the Army - while continuing to help in finding people jobs - concentrated on providing practical relief necessitated through unemployment. The Army's example here led to the first British employment program.

The "Employment 2000" training and placement program, which opened in 1983, was the forerunner to the Army's current work program, through Employment Plus. This is part of the Federal Government's Job Network.

When Employment 2000 closed, there were 12 centres operating throughout Australia. In mid-1999, Employment Plus had 65 service delivery offices throughout Australia. It employed 450 staff and had 100,000 people registered on the Army's placement books.

E-Plus staff worked intensively with 25,000 long-term unemployed Australians, and placed 15,000 people in jobs since 1 May 1998, when the new program started (having won the tender from the Federal Government in January 1998).

"The Army has never completely left the field of employment... we sort of 'come in' and 'out' of it on a 'needs basis'," says Wilma Gallet, the National General Manager of Employment Plus. "We've seen some amazing examples of lives being changed."

Numerous letters are regularly received, often expressing sentiments such as the following: "Thank God for the Salvos, you're the agency that cares about families." E-Plus has encouraged people to believe in themselves, and moved them out of demoralising, dehumanising situations and occupations such as prostitution. By building up jobseekers' self-esteem and confidence, Wilma says that the Salvos' E-Plus case workers "help them to realise that they are people with something valuable to offer".

As with many aspects of Salvation Army service, the employment services aim to fulfill the "Good Samaritan model". And, while individuals have come to faith in Christ, because of the faith community that they have found in the Salvation Army, the Army is not helping people get jobs simply to proselytise them. "The important thing is that our clients see something of God's love expressed to them," says Wilma.

For more information see the Employment Plus web site.

Prison ministry

Another Australian precedent for The Salvation Army was the commencement of a prison ministry.

When Major James Barker arrived in Melbourne, one of the first men he met was noted philanthropist Dr John Singleton. Singleton had visited prisoners since the 1850s. He is perhaps best known for being the person that bushranger Ned Kelly had asked to see, before that most tragic of figures was hanged.

Through the contact with Singleton, Barker stood bond for men who would otherwise have been placed in gaol. Barker also became involved in chaplaincy work, holding weekly meetings in prisons and encouraging prisoners who had been sent to "hard labour camps".

The first Salvation Army "Prison Brigade Home" was opened in 1883 and administered by a Captain Shepherd, a recent convert and former prisoner himself. The work continues to this day, in courts and prisons throughout Australia.

For more information see our Court and Prison services page.

Family Tracing

Finding "missing persons", is the role of the Army's Family Tracing Service. Finding people who have lost contact with family is a laborious process. There are times when the Army's "success" in locating someone (through the Salvos' War Cry and other media outlets) is complicated by the fact that the person located does not wish to be in contact with those seeking him or her. Stories of sorrow and joy occur regularly for Family Tracing Service workers, often on the same day.

This work commenced in London, in 1885, triggered by a concern for young women headed for big cities who were losing contact with their families; often ending up working as prostitutes.

For more information see our Family Tracing page.

Flying Padre

An aspect of Salvation Army work with a distinctly Australian nature is the "Flying Padre". Be it outback New South Wales, Queensland, or the Northern Territory, Flying Padres have been in and out of the air visiting isolated Australians since 1945.

Perhaps their finest hour came in 1974, when Flying Padres helped keep flood victims in Longreach, Queensland, supplied with food and medical supplies.

The Flying Padre Service now covers an area over NT and WA above the line drawn between Camooweal on the QLD border and Tennant Ck to Broom on the WA coast. In total 120 cattle stations and communities are visited by the Flying Padre two to four times each year. The aircraft used is a 1979 Cessna 182 which is very reliable and ideal for the work. The are is vast, beautiful and isolated with many people counting themselves fortunate to get to town twice a year or perhaps some on a monthly basis.

The service operates like any other officer or minister visiting their people in town except the are covered is much greater. There have been baby dedications and weddings and many hours counselling around the kitchen table, in the stockyards and out in the stockcamps with the noise of cattle in the background and amongst the dust and the flies. To meet a person 'where they are at' in this situation the Flying Padre needs to get involved in the everyday happenings of outback living. This has meant actually handling cattle in the stockyards and on the back of cattle trucks, riding horses, driving tractors, flying out to check on bush fires, water conditions and stock movements.

One situation involved the naming and dedication of a water-hole on the Fitzroy river in the Kimberley ranges. This was in memory or a young man from Perth who spent much of his life in the area. His family and a gathering of tourists were at the service.

In spite of modern communication methods the outback continues to be a place of isolation, heartache and tears. The Flying Padre Service is well situated to help fill some of the void.

For more information see the Flying Padre website.